laughing, the whole night sleeping, unless
I had some reason for writing verses."

About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic
composition. Only two of his novels have survived: 'La Dame aux
Camelias' ('Camille': 1848), because from this book came the immortal
drama by the same title; and 'The Clemenceau Case,' because the author
wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent, and because
moreover it is a first-rate work.

It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first performance
of 'Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary. For two
or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to theatre.
Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed simply shocking,
and the play was still forbidden in London after its performances in
France were numbered by the hundreds.

There is this special trait in 'Camille'--it was a work all instinct
with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said: "I
might perhaps make another 'Demi-Monde'; I could not make another
'Camille.'" There existed, indeed, other works which have all the
fire and charm of the twentieth year. 'Polyeucte' is Corneille's
masterpiece; his 'Cid' breathes the spirit of youth: Corneille at
forty could not have written the 'Cid.' Racine's first play is
'Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the 'Barber of Seville'; Rossini, when
young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen years
later he himself wrote his 'William Tell,' a higher work, but a work
which was not young.

[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR.]

If the theatrical managers had recoiled from 'Camille' in spite of the
great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after a
pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it is
because it contained the germ of a whole dramatic revolution. Now, the
author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said to himself,
"I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama, and erect a new
one on its ruins." To tell the truth, he had no idea of what he was
doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He had thrown it still throbbing
upon the stage, without any regard for the dramatic conventions which
were then imposed upon playwrights, and which were almost accepted as
laws. He had simply depicted what he had seen. All the